When I wrote the first draft of Bright the biggest issue in Estelle’s world was the unrelenting Light Pollution, but the story grew, the issues deepened, and by the Trilogy’s last page, Estelle became a strong activist, a brave citizen, a peaceful dissenter, and a powerful revolutionary. Also, and this is a spoiler alert, a thoughtful head of state.

Bright, Beyond, and Belief are novels about a young girl who wants to change everything but doesn’t know how, so she begins with what she can do. She starts a farm. Becomes a rebel. And unknowingly begins a revolution.

In the first book, Bright, Estelle’s world is darker than she imagines:

Estelle’s choices are severly limited

She uncovers thought control

Fear and pressure to submit to the control

The right to protest is curtailed

The legal system is unfair

Imprisonment without due process

and still that unrelenting Light Pollution.

Estelle fought back against the government with:

Protest

Nonviolent Resistance

Freedom of the Press

Civil-disobedience and Arrest

To get Estelle released from prison, her friends and family used:

Nonviolent action and occupation

Pressure within the legal system

In the end she is allowed the Right to Farm. And the skies above her farm are dark. Estelle feels like she has won.

Through the stories Estelle is a reluctant leader, an In-Over-Her-Head activist, and a teen girl, who simply wants to see the stars, but in the end she strengthens her family, falls in love, and finds a purpose beyond her original dreams. She becomes a leader who didn’t aspire to the job, but took it because, in her own words, “. . . though almost everyone would disagree—they would be lying—I was responsible for them all.”